


if two gods were in the woods and one blew up a tree would that be fucked up or what?

by TMOS



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Deitystuck AU, Getting Together, Inspired by Music, M/M, POV Second Person, Songfic, Swearing, i put off posting this for 4 hours so now im nightposting, meme references, the first third of this fanfic is practically a beat-to-beat name drop of Neil Cicierega music, warning that decomposition gets mentioned for anyone who might get squicked
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23539759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TMOS/pseuds/TMOS
Summary: Ampora, The Water Bearer, goes for a work-related visit and ends up leaving with Captor, The Twin, to go act like idiots in the woods.(alternate fic title: "my god my god and my tree that exploded" lmfao)
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas (mentioned), Eridan Ampora/Sollux Captor, Sollux Captor & Aradia Megido (mentioned)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 42





	if two gods were in the woods and one blew up a tree would that be fucked up or what?

**Author's Note:**

> i have read this thing over two dozen times forwards, twice backwards, and also got it beta read; at this point if it has errors i perish like a sad little clown haha
> 
> anyways, erisol stans who love them depicted as "soft and affectionate but like in a bastard-ly way" i have delivered the good shit lmao

You walk through the downpour of rain all around you, where the dark clouds spread out far across the land. The water pelts the earth and leaves a glistening wet sheen over the world, yet you are completely dry surrounded by the storm, as you wish to be. You may be Ampora, the Water Bearer, but that doesn’t mean you have to be bare to the water you bring from the sky.

You roll your eyes as you think about how completely asinine it would be if you tried to do your job while soaked to your very soul from the rain. It would probably just give you the appearance of a pissed-off drowned animal; not exactly the most mockery-proof aesthetic for a minor god trying to keep up his appearance.

The farther you walk, the further you venture into a wide open field. Soon, you stand in front of an abandoned gas station’s convenience store. No roads connect to it, and none of the signs and imagery placed around the building have any text. Yet, the inside is well lit to light up its darkened surroundings through the windows in this late night storm. Any fool who ran into this accidentally would be fearful of this liminal space, so obviously misplaced and socially-lacking. You, arriving with purpose, know this is the place to find the Time god.

You enter through the door. The store plays a deep rumbling tune through the speakers, which can hardly be heard over the pattering of your rain on the roofing. Standing around, you notice there isn’t a single thing in the shelves or on the counters in the room, but the place is incredibly well kept. It’s off-putting to look at for very long.

You begin to move deeper into the tiny building, but pause as you hear vocals begin to play in the low, slow music that distracts you.

_YOUNG MAN, THERE’S NO NEED TO FEEL DOWN_

_I SAID YOUNG MAN, PICK YOURSELF OFF THE GROUND, I SAID—_

You roll your eyes at the music; a purely shits-and-giggles song managing to barely mask itself as something serious. You go back to venturing to the back of the empty store, and reach the door that might have been a supply room— or maybe just a worker-only room? You have no fucking idea about anything concerning convenience stores— that doesn’t seem locked. When you push it open, you see the god of Time sitting with his feet resting on a desk.

“Hey,” you say to grab his attention, which is somewhat redundant; the door opening caught his attention perfectly well already.

“Oh snap,” Strider says, “Out of all the people who might be visiting, the last person I expected to show up right now was you.”

You hardly start to open your mouth to stop Strider before he’s already starting an absurd tangent.

“I started hearing all that noise hit the roof ages ago, dude. I’m sitting here like ‘Oh shit!’ thinking ol’ Sweaty Artemis is all up and wrecking my shit ‘cause of last week. Making calls fuckin’ left and right like, ‘Lalonde, Zahhak is finally after my ass ‘cause of the chunky horse sculpture incident. I need you to save the CD’s I left at the Taj Mahal before he gets them,’ and, ‘Mr. Obama, I think I’m boutta head out,’ and all that. I’m running around all frantic and shit spewing sick lines as I go, all ready to see a ripe downfall of arrows fucking penetrating through the ceiling into the room, and— “

You sigh loudly in agony, cutting him off. “You aren’t as funny as you think, you know.”

“Aw man, I’m so fucking sorry, I didn’t know you have ‘can’t enjoy anything’ disorder, that’s my bad, dude.”

You scowl at him, quickly getting to the point; “I need your help with somethin’.”

“Alright, shoot.”

You properly enter the room and take a seat in front of Strider’s desk. He puts his feet down in turn so you don’t have his sneakers right there in your face. “I need you to assist me with the upcomin’ weather in a few days. I have big storms scheduled that I need to bring around, but I need them in too short of a timespan to be hoppin’ around like normal. I need to be in several places at once for this to work.”

“So you need me to keep bringing you back in time to certain places so you can basically drown the Earth.”

“In a loose sense of drownin’ I suppose.”

Strider leans over his desk. “And you _need_ to bring all of this rain?”

“The last time I brought bad weather was when I left some droughts, so this time it’s a surplus. It’s a basic fuckin’ balancin’ act I’m carryin’ out here, an’ with the natural direction the weather is headin’ I need an abnormal amount of rain.”

You hear the rumble of thunder muffled in the distance, and the both of you look over to the direction it came from past the door, far from the empty convenience store. You look back and Strider has a knowing look on his face. You can’t tell if your reaction is annoyed or that of someone being called out. It’s an unspoken common knowledge that you aren’t the one who provides lightning to your own storms; it’s not like the fact is a secret that’s kept from anyone. It’s just a quiet fact, which is ironic considering how fucking loud thunder can be.

“Alright,” he continues on. “I suppose I can make some time for you and help out.”

“I’ll come back when I’m ready to go in about three days’ time,” you say. You get up from the chair and start to head out, but once you open the door you are affronted by the music that’s still playing in the cleaned-out space.

_—THEY HAVE EVERY THING, FOR YOUNG MEN TO ENJOY, YOU CAN HANG OUT WITH ALL THE BOYS_

_Y.M.C.A, IT’S FUN TO STAY AT THE Y.M.C.A_

_YOUNG MAN YOUNG MAN, THERE’S NO NEED TO FEEL DOWN_

_YOUNG MAN YOUNG MAN, PUT YOUR PRIDE ON THE SHELF_

You turn around to ask, “Why the fuck is _this_ the kind of bullshit you play for people when they come over?”

“Oh, you don’t want to listen to Neil’s song _T.I.M.E_ _?_ You want something else? That's cool, the song was ending anyways.” Strider brings his hand up to snap his fingers in the air. The music abruptly stops to be replaced with a new song.

_SOME. SOME. SOME. SOME-SOME-SOME. SOME-SOME-SOME. SOME. SOME. SOME. SOME._

Oh god, what the fuck.

**HEY. NOW. HEY. NOW-NOW-HEY. NOW-NOW-HEY. NOW. HEY. NOW.** **_HEY_ ** **.**

Being exposed to Neil Cicierega’s song _Promenade—_ regardless of actually knowing the song’s name— through those shitty speakers is actually physically hurting your ears. The second rumble of thunder you hear can’t mask the stupid noise, either. You shut the door to protect yourself.

“Turn that off,” you demand.

Strider snaps again. He gives a smirk and folds his hands on his desk. The music has gone to a song that you think just name-dropped Tim Allen just five seconds in. You also think you’ve ended up looking at Strider like you’d look at the literal sun in response; a little bit in pain and wondering why the fuck you decided to interact with the sun like this.

“This one’s called _Annoyed Grunt._ ”

“This sucks,” you grunt, annoyed.

“I get it man, my palette is just too distinguished for your sense of music,” he jokes.

The scoff you let out is so aggressive it comes out as a quick wheeze.

“Your _palette_ is the equivalent of puttin’ tapioca puddin’ an’ fruit into instant _fuckin’_ ramen, _an’ then tryin’ to eat it with a knife_.”

“Fuck yeah dude, That’s your problem.”

You grumble, looking away as you lift your glasses with one hand and rub your face with the other. As you do, a third sound of thunder sounds from outside that is uniquely closer than the others. If there were windows back here, you think the entire place would have been swathed in light from the close proximity to the lightning strike.

“Hey, asshat! If you’re going to play Neil’s music for your guests, the _least_ you could do is play some shit like _Super Hey Ya_ or _Two Trucks._ Fuck! Even _One Weird Tip_ would be better right now, _”_ comes a yell that gets muffled through the door.

Yep. There’s your lightning.

“Don’t test me piss-boy, I’ll play _Space Monkey Mafia,”_ Strider calls back in return.

“Do it, shithead!”

Fucking hell.

Sliding your glasses back on your face and opening the door brings you to see that The Twin, Captor, has walked into Strider’s stupid bare husk of a convenience store. He’s soaking wet and dripping on the floor, but he doesn’t seem bothered by the fact as far as you can tell. When he sees you, he waves with a playful smile. It’s more genuine than the passive smug one he had before.

“Well, bye,” you say suddenly to Strider. The door to his office closes with a _thunk_ as you walk away, and you meet up with Captor in the middle of the empty product shelves.

“Sup,” Captor greets. “You making deals with dipshit back there?”

You can feel your shoulders relax, more content with having Captor to talk to. You’ve grown to work well with him through all the history you’ve both shared with the fourteen other deities you know. It’s almost funny; the two of you felt the complete opposite of relaxed and content with each other when you first met. You suppose that the two of you mellowed out a lot in the ages.

You take the time to get rid of all the water dripping off of him, slicking it off completely without laying a hand on him with small, sweeping hand gestures. “Yes. He’s an absolute headache to deal with today.”

“Just be one right back to him.”

“He’s rather immune to my ways of bein’ a headache.”

“Sucks to suck then, I guess.”

You scoff and waver your hand in the air, ruffling up Captor’s hair as the droplets fly everywhere. He snorts and smacks your hand back down, and you end up cracking a smile in return. Thunder rumbles somewhere off in the distance after a moment.

“Are you just here for me, or do you have to talk with Stri, too?”

“Only you, _duh_ ,” he says easily, as if it’s _ridiculous_ to think that their shared interest in Neil Cicierega would make Captor want to visit. “I was in the area twinning with MG and working on some stuff. We could see your storm in the distance, so once we were done what we were doing I came over to find you and visit.”

You hum, feeling a nice warmth in your chest over Captor seeking you out. “I’m glad to have your company then,” you say.

“Fuck yeah you are,” he says with a grin. That gets a little laugh out of you.

Directly after, you both hear a snap near the back of the empty store. The music suddenly stops again, and there’s a new song that begins playing. You turn around and catch the sight of Strider in the doorway to his office, leaning in the doorway with his hand still up in the air. Then the lyrics start up.

Oh.

It’s fucking Paul Anka’s _Put Your Head On My Shoulder,_ because of _course_ it is. What the hell, Strider.

You frown and feel your face start to color. Strider is sending such a dumb look your way that you can’t look at him, so you look over to where Captor is instead. He looks embarrassed too, but as soon as he makes eye contact with you he leans around you to look at the god of Time in the back of the store, saying, “Do you play this garbage un-ironically when _VT_ brings his sorry crabby-ass out of the water to visit? Holy fuck.”

Strider’s face reaches a new shade in seconds, like he’s trying to beat celebrity mortal Justin McElroy for the world record. He also gets pretty flustered, if his mouth opening and closing a couple times without any sounds is anything to go by.

“Why the fuck would I— I don’t—!” he manages to get out before fumbling more on his words. He starts to go on a new tangent; something about “being really cool bros” that Strider manages to detour straight into talking about how expensive hot tubs are in the human economy.

In the end, he clams up and retreats into his office again with a hasty, “I will see you in three days, Ampora,” as he shuts the door. The music quickly stops and gets replaced with a new song you don’t bother to really register. You assume it’s still by Neil Cicierega, regardless of what it is. Captor smiles contently beside you, if not like an asshole, and you wonder if it’s because he knows the song.

“See? Be a headache right back.”

You try to hold back the smile creeping back on your face. “Damn. Might need to ask you for tips before I visit Stri again.”

“Eh. I’m sure you could figure it out on your own.”

You nudge him with your elbow and walk past him to the doorway, and he follows right after. The pools of water that met the tiled floor and empty shelves as you dried Captor off snake along on the ground, following the two of you back outside.

* * *

The two of you have long-since left Strider’s personal liminal space, and currently find yourselves wandering simply to wander. You’re walking in comfortable silence through a field, with only your rain and Captor’s punctuated lightning filling up all the conversation you share on the walk. You make sure Captor keeps dry; you can’t predict his movement as smoothly as you can for yourself, so you have a bit of a circle around the both of you where the rain won’t fall.

The field starts dwindling out into a forest. You look at all the trees that are beginning to surround you both, looking at all the different branches and nicks in the wood.

“Hey,” you say. You take a moment to wait for him to respond, but the response doesn’t come. You will the rain around you to lighten up, slowly easing into a rainy pitter-patter.

“Cap,” you try again, just a little louder than before.

He looks at you and makes a face, as if he can’t decide if the nickname is stupidly funny or stupidly annoying; his brow is somewhat furrowed, but the corner of his lips are turning into a smile. “How many times have I told you that you have ridiculous nicknames?”

You respond to his comment with only a smug little shrug. “Do you remember the last time we watched a tree after it got hit with lightnin’?”

“Of _course_ I do. I’m the one who struck the last one, and _all the_ _other ones_ before that.”

“You wanna watch another one tonight?”

Captor looks around, taking in all of the trees around the both of you. “I mean, _yeah_ , but the frequency in which the two of us blow up some dumb trees is kind of a big _fuck you_ to nature at this point.”

“ _Any_ frequency where one seeks to blow up trees is a fuck you to nature.”

He takes a moment in silence to simply look out towards the trees. You watch him, and when he finally turns to find your stare— and you begin to self-consciously wonder how much amused affection is showing up in your facial expression— he stares at you back.

Finally, he rolls his eyes with a snort and a smirk and says, “Give me a minute to find a good one,” before heading out to the trees. You grin and watch as he begins the process to find the most suitable specimen to be tonight’s giant fucking matchstick.

He walks circles around each tree, occasionally knocking his knuckles against the damp wooden surfaces. His movement is methodical through practice, and you follow from a distance to let him do his thing. Of course, you make sure you’re close enough to be able to keep the rain off him.

“So, what were you an’ Meg up to before you came to visit?”

“Wow, don’t call her Meg.”

“What were you an’ _Ido_ up to, _Tor?”_

Captor pauses, obviously forcing down a reluctant smile. “Honestly? We were just making a little town for some worms we found.”

“Oh. Worms?”

“Yeah. We had been working on some of MG’s chores together up until she turned up a rock and found _a shit-ton_ of worms. As soon as we saw those little guys? The chores we’d been doing before flew the _fuck_ out of a goddamn window, I swear.”

You listen to Captor as he talks about Worm Town. While he’s chatting happily to you about the goofy quality time he spent with his dear friend, smiling and still looking for the perfect tree to indulge with destructive entertainment, you realize that you feel that same nice feeling in your chest from when you were both in Strider's liminal space. It’s nice and comforting, like when you're in your own liminal space, reading in the dead of night under the lamp-light. Curled up on your couch with a blanket over your legs, holding your worn books that smell like history and hold words of nostalgia. It’s just you, your old books, and that tall lamp lighting the room, rolling up together to give you a weirdly nice existential crisis.

You wonder if you could manage to make a metaphor out of that setting. Captor could probably be your lamp? It works with how he uses lightning when he twins with you, but not really any other time. While he has lightning while he twins with you, he works with technology when twinning with Zahhak, and works with fresh death when he twins with Megido. He works with alcohol when he twins with Makara, which you don't fucking understand, but alright. Either way, you suppose it only matters when Captor is actually with you, so he fits as a lamp. Lamps use electricity, and Captor has electricity; lamps are soothing and warm, and Captor is soothing and warm.

The lamp in question breaks you out of your silly little poetic stupor. “Oh, hell yes. This is the one.”

You both stand in a clearing with a tree that has a large trunk. It has a hole in the side, and when you peer into it you find that the entire thing is empty; a hollow tree.

 _“Hell fuckin’ yes,”_ you say in agreement.

You glance at each other with mirrored joyful anticipation. This is the opening to a show you’ve seen many times, and neither of you have gotten tired of seeing it.

“You know the drill,” Captor says.

“Like the back of my hand,” you confirm.

You make hand motions to pull the storm clouds overhead so that there’s a ring of clear sky around the hollow tree, making a circle in the center to act as a target. The two of you backtrack halfway out of the woods. You’re far enough to stay safe, yet close enough to get back to the tree in time.

You both plug your ears, and with that comes the stomp of Captor’s foot. The world flashes white in the distance for just a second, and the _BOOM_ of the thunder just barely overwhelms you even with the (rather lacking, all things considered) ear protection. In an instant the two of you are sprinting back to the tree in full force. Captor laughs in accomplished joy, and your own laugh tinges on an aesthetic of maniacal glee, simply for the fun of it.

When you get back, the empty husk of bark and limbs has lit aflame on the inside. Chunks have fallen off in the burst of electric energy, blown across into the other trees and foliage. The fire makes the inside of the tree glow, flickering and licking at the air on the outside through the holes left in the wood. It crackles like a campfire, and smoke gently wisps through the air around it.

“Man, I genuinely fucking missed this,” Captor says quietly beside you. You can hear the smile in his voice.

“Yeah, It’s been a while,” you agree.

You both spend a good amount of time wandering around the tree, enjoying the beauty of its contained destruction all the way up until you deem it time to put it out. When that time finally comes, you pull the clouds closer for a moment to guide the rain to the tree, effectively putting it out. It smokes and billows from the inside; one of the reasons the two of you don’t do this _too_ often. Peixes and Nitram both work together to take care of the planet as their respective side gigs, so the two of them would kick both your asses if you destroyed too much shit. Well, in Nitram’s case, you might need to push a little bit more for him to do anything harsh, but Peixes would storm out of the sea with more fury than _Truth Coming Out of Her Well._

You hum to yourself and clear some of the moisture from the ground below you from the rain. You lay on your back in the grass and push the clouds further back, and Captor walks closer to stand over you.

“Having a break, AP?”

“Oh, so you can give _me_ a nickname, but I can’t give _you_ one?”

Captor snorts. “You shut the fuck up, we both know that AP is a _million times better_ than Cap.”

“Is it, Cap?”

He makes a face at you. “Yes.”

“Are you sure, Cap?”

“Oh, you bastard.”

“ _Caaap._ ”

He puts a hand over the upper-half of his face, looking pointedly away from you. “Nope.”

“Cappyyy,” you whine dramatically, throwing your arms into the air towards him.

“Nope!”

“Cappyyyy. Kappaaaaa. Capybaraaaaaa.”

You can see his mouth curl up from where you lay on the ground. His lips practically disappear in the process and turn to a thin line. It’s sweet in a silly way, you think in the back of your head.

“I’m pretty sure I’m more of a Capy-bean pole,” he says finally, sparing a look towards you and putting his hand back down.

You can’t help but let out a surprised cackle, and Captor grins before sitting down on the ground beside you. After a moment you hear thunder roll in deeply from the distance. It’s an incredibly comforting sound, and you wonder if it still would be if you weren’t associated with Captor. If you weren’t one-hundred-percent certain that you would not be harmed by such a terrifying amount of dense, striking power, would it still be as nice to listen to? You don’t really know.

You just lay there and let your mind get away from you, while Captor likely does the same as he sits. You wonder if he finds his thoughts circling around you the same way yours are circling him, like a planet caught in the sun’s orbit. Then you fall into wondering if Captor is an auditory or visual thinker, and if he can see his thoughts. Then it all spirals from there until you end up thinking about how humans invented a show that involves waterbending, which you appreciate.

Finally, you think about water balloons.

“Hey. Lay down with me,” you tell Captor.

He looks over to you with mild curiosity before shrugging and plopping himself down in the dry grass beside you. “What’s up?”

“Watch.”

You raise your hands up to pull the rain clouds back over your heads. When the rain comes down, it stops about a half-meter above you, pooling up into a floating wobbly oval. You guide the rain that falls farther into the sky puddle too, quickly building up its mass.

“I have such a strong, impulsive need to see what would happen if I struck this with lightning,” Captor says.

“Maybe another time. This one is just to look at as it is,” you respond easily, keeping your anticipation out of your voice and your hands still in the air. The water oval will be big enough soon.

You look over at each other. You can’t tell if Captor knows exactly what you have planned, or if he’s just looking at you like _that_ just because he can. It’s a soft little look that Leijon might call somewhat catty.

“Yeah, alright,” he says.

You pull more of the rainwater in, all the way up to the point where it’s approximately the size of, dare you say it, a ten-foot water balloon, since six-feet feels a little too small compared to your abilities. Then, you simply will the clouds further away so that there’s a clear view of the moon above you, through the floating mass. The soft light from the moon and stars reflects into the slowly moving liquid, making shapes and movement you could keep watching for hours. You idly wisp you hands around to make the big shape move around and distort the light. You get a couple laughs out of the dork beside you when you start making complex fancy shapes directly followed by stupid little memes you know that he likes.

In the end, you look over to Captor again, hands paused in the air. “You know what’s better than just lookin’ at cool shapes in the water?”

“Making a good fucking worm town?” he says teasingly.

“Nope.” You pop the P-sound and give him a cheeky little look.

You drop your hands completely, and all of the water that you built up, floating precariously from above, pours down and practically slams down into the both of you. Captor lets out a surprised yelp before all of the water encases the entirety of existence for all of four seconds, leaving the two of you absolutely drenched by the hands of your stupid, giant, balloon-less water balloon. When you open your eyes again, the grass around you has been completely glazed over with water; mud has appeared instantly from the sheer force of it all.

“You little shit _,_ ” Captor deadpans, with a tone that sends across the feeling of resigned acceptance.

You can’t keep yourself from laughing so goddamn hard at him in response. Partially because your plan worked, and partially because of the reaction it got out of the poor, drenched minor god beside you. You end up sitting, doubled over in your laughter and hiding your face with your hands. You need to do stupid stuff like this more often, you decide. It’s not often you strip away your stubborn little stick-in-your-ass aesthetic.

“Are you good there, AP?”

You look at him laying on the ground once you regain composure, still soaked to the bone and hair plastered down. He just hasn’t bothered to move after you practically drowned the forest clearing. You pull all of the water away from you and your clothes, and promptly dump it all back onto Captor with a stupid little giggle.

Captor, _ever the patient one with you_ , just takes it in stride. “You tease people in a weird way. You know that, right?”

“Well, then it’s a good thing I only ever tease _you_.” You finally whisk away the water from Captor’s clothes with a quick little hand motion. Ah, fucking hell, you’re flirting with him and you’re probably doing it badly. Shit. Fuck.

You hear his little snort as he tosses his hands in the air. “Fuck! Guess you got me there! I forgot that I get all your teasing for myself.”

Okay, if the flirting is being reciprocated right now, you’re pretty sure you’re more on-level with the flirting expectations than you just thought.

You lean on one arm to get a little closer to Captor, idly gesturing to flick away the water in his hair, getting it dry once again. “Very special privilege you got goin’ for yourself there, Cap.”

“At the cost of being called _Cap_ , I suppose.”

“Shush, it’s a perfectly good nickname.”

He raises his eyebrows at you exasperatedly. “How?”

“Because,” you say, “it’s efficient, considerin’ it’s one less syllable that needs to be said.”

“I _like_ my two syllables. _Most people_ like their syllables.”

“Yeah, well I’m your bastard that likes to cut names in half.”

Captor hums in response, and when you switch to knocking off the water still left on his face, he closes his eyes. Just for a moment, there’s nothing but the sound of your rain in the near-distance, pattering across the forest leaves, and the water you gesture away with soft little wet _thip_ sounds.

“ _My_ bastard, huh?”

You pause and look down; his eyes are open and that soft look is on his face again. It’s certainly a look in the smirking category— possibly coy, or yet again like Leijon says, _catty_ , though Leijon always describes things as such— but it’s Captor-brand soft, if you’ve ever seen it.

“Well,” you falter, your own hands naturally finding each other, “we’ve certainly reached a point that could lead to that, haven’t we?”

“You could say that,” he says with a teasing little tone. He puts his hands together behind his head and kicks one leg over the other as he continues to say down in the grass.

“An’ you know those signs that humans have made based on us twelve minor gods. The zodiac ones?”

“Yes. My liminal space is in a mirror, AP, not under a goddamn rock.”

“Right, and— ” you glance away and make a vague motion with your hands, accidentally sweeping some water along with the gesture that launches into the bushes— “they _do_ say that Gemini an’ Aquarius are pretty fuckin’ compatible. That’s us.”

You hear nothing, up until a few moments later where the quiet sound of Captor finally moving to sit up beside you reaches your ears; in your peripherals you can see him rest his arms on his knees. You think he might be looking at you.

You push down the little rising nerves that are battling over if he’ll softly reject you or not. You don’t even question if he might decide to put you down harshly; you know better than the anxiety eating at your rationality, and the two of you got past the point where that event was possible so fucking long ago. At the very least, that’s what you’re telling yourself to make sure you don’t end up experiencing a fight or flight response.

Then you hear him start to snicker beside you.

You look, confused, to find him with his head in his arms as he lightly shakes from the bouncy little way he’s laughing. He turns his head to look up at you.

“Sorry, it’s just— ” he laughs through his words, and a rumble of thunder reaches the forest— “did you say anything about me before I got to SD’s piss-poor gas station? Is _that_ why he started playing romantic music before?”

You dramatically roll your eyes. “Fuckin’ hell, I didn’t even say anythin’! I only _looked_ in the direction we heard your thunder come from and he looked at me like I talked about you for _hours_.”

He laughs harder at you. “Aww, were you happy I was arriving? Did you look like such a sappy bastard that even _Strider_ noticed?”

You push him with both hands; light enough to not hurt but hard enough that his lanky-ass tips to the side and he ends up back in the grass. You try to keep the stupid little infectious smile from creeping onto your face. “Don’t laugh at me like that’s somethin’ new, of goddamn course I was happy to see you!”

That just makes him laugh more at you, sprawled back onto the grass like an idiot. You take a moment to just sit there with your eyes closed, unsure if your face is currently hurting from being barely successful at holding a grimace or going past your daily smile quota.

“I have half a mind to leave you here layin’ on the ground, you know,” you say to him.

“Do it! I am becoming one with the earth,” he teases.

You scoff. “You sound like Meg.”

“Stone and dirt and worms, clay and salt and new life springing from rotting flesh! Join me, AP, show me how fast you can decompose!”

“Oh god, you _really_ sound like Meg.”

Captor cackles loudly. “Have you ever considered becoming sustenance for the beetles and ants?”

“...This is a reference you two piss yourselves laughin’ over, isn’t it?”

“We were quoting the better parts of it the _entire_ time we were making Worm Town,” he confirms, his laughter settling down to a dorky little grin.

“Naturally,” you deadpan. “You are absolutely ridiculous.”

“Eh, I’m _your_ absolutely ridiculous,” he says with a casual shrug.

You pause for a moment to take in what he says before you lean towards him, sitting on your legs just to the side of his torso and looking at his face. That was very a stupid sentence structure he just created, and you want to comment on it, but you two aren’t going to get anywhere if you keep side-tracking each other.

“Can I ask you somethin’, Captor?”

By his reaction alone, you are almost certain that not using a nickname was more of a romantic setup to this nerd than the change of tone you just made. There’s also a strong rumble of thunder that happens almost immediately after, though you didn’t see it’s lightning. You wonder if that one was actually made on purpose or not. It’d be cute if it was accidental; a physical reaction for a skip of the heart, maybe.

“If you can ask it in four words,” he says.

You lean down a little bit more; not close enough to get into his personal space, but still close enough for it to be noticeable. “Can I kiss you?”

He grins and lifts his upper-body up to prop himself up on his elbows, and you realize that you would be absolutely losing it if you didn’t think Captor was cute. His hair has lightly curled from getting it dried, and while he doesn’t traditionally fit the common description of pretty-boy, every fucking thing about him just yells _“Oh shit! That’s some good fucking boyish-charm”_ and to your poor heart that’s pretty-boy enough.

He laughs with a soft little snicker-y sound. “Ugh, _please.”_

You finally— _finally_ — press your lips together, soft against barely chapped. You can feel the way the corners of his mouth are just a little bit upturned as he kisses you back. He tilts his head and you cup his cheek in turn, getting caught up in the sweet moment of the rain-washed smell and the calm pitter-pattering, mixed along with the easy rhythm the two of you find as you kiss in the night-lit clearing. Neither of you are hasty; you’re certain that this is just a new step in the dynamic you’ve built up together, and not just a simple outlier. You’ll confirm that with Captor after, just to be certain, but for right now all you can really give a shit about is that this is something you’ve wanted for a while, and you’ve gotten it.

At one point, Captor sits up completely so the two of you don’t end up hurting your necks and backs. At another point shortly after that, you start to hear a distinctive slow rumble. If you had to pin it as anything, you would call it the sound of several far-off, frequent lightning strikes that blend together into the world’s most high-power white noise. It admittedly reminds you of a purring cat.

You start to grin into the kiss at the thought, and Captor ends up pulling away when it’s too difficult to kiss you comfortably because of it. “What?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you can be very cat-like at times?” you ask him.

He looks at you almost dumbfounded for a moment, before laughing sheepishly and glancing away, “I guess I’ve been twinning with Leijon a bit more than usual then, huh?”

“You gonna turn into a furry like her as well?”

He snorts and pushes at you lightly. “Don’t even think about it, asshole.”

“Hmm, _I dunno Cap,_ I think I’ve started thinkin’ about it,” you tease, getting your face smushed by two hands on your cheeks in response. You attempt to blow a raspberry at him, which ultimately fails. He laughs at your sad little puff of air, like the little (somewhat endearing) shit he is.

“How about this,” he says. “If you drop this bit you're doing, I’ll kiss you again.”

He softens the hold on your cheeks to simply cup them, which you appreciate very much.

“Consider it officially dropped, then.”

You both lean in, and Captor keeps his end of the bargain.

**Author's Note:**

> and there we have it! hope i hit a good niche for some people!  
> i might end up adding new chapters someday just for world-building and extra content, but who knows as of writing this note! got a lot of different fics bouncing around in my head, lmao


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